Dear Friends,

FGC’s Junior Gathering, High School, and Adult Young Friend Committees are excited to team up for a new adventure this summer. We are excited to announce YAY! This in-person event for Young Adults & Youth will take place Wednesday, July 6 through Sunday, July 10 at Radford University in Radford, Virginia. YAY is for children, parents, youth, and young adults. The committees have discerned a leading to center the needs of families, children, youth & young adults to be in community in-person.

This event will run at the same time as the 2022 FGC virtual Gathering, however it is not a hybrid event. YAY will only focus on in-person activities. FGC is carefully emerging from the pandemic by offering small and medium-sized events this year. FGC feels that hosting this smaller in-person event reduces some of the risks and challenges present with a full-scale in-person Gathering.  We plan to be back at full-scale next year for the in-person 2023 Gathering in Monmouth, Oregon.

Event Structure

YAY will have separate sessions for each of these communities:

• Junior Gathering (birth-rising 9^th grade)
• High School (rising 10^th-graduating senior)
• Adult Young Friends (ages 18-37*)
• Parents & Sponsors (for parents & sponsors of youth & children ages 0-18 at the event)

There will also be daily intergenerational activities for all groups to play, worship, and learn together. Adult Young Friends and High School participants will each have their own separate dorms. High School participants must attend with a parent or sponsor.

Adult Young Friend Information

The FGC Adult Young Friends (AYF) community includes Friends between the ages of 18-35. For YAY, Friends up to age 37 are invited to participate in the AYF community.  The AYF committee wants to gather in-person with Friends who aged out of the program during the last two years of virtual events.

There will be some virtual Adult Young Friends programs at the beginning of the 2022 FGC virtual Gathering for those who cannot attend in-person.

Want to help out?

The YAY Committees are excited to design an event that is supportive of staff and volunteers. If you’d like to serve as staff at this event – please complete a staff application here.

The Young Adult and Youth Committees are finalizing a schedule and will open registration in May for this event. FGC will update this page with more information as it is available. Please contact Marian Dalke, Gathering Youth Coordinator at mariand@fgcquaker.org if you have any questions.

Please save the dates (July 6-10 in Radford, VA). We look forward to the opportunities that will come with this special event. 

Blessings,

Junior Gathering, High School & Adult Young Friends Committees